Why 3D Systems Just Cannot Get Its Earnings Guidance Right

When the company provided full-year 2015 guidance in its fourth-quarter earnings announcement, it forecast revenues in the range of $850 million to $900 million and adjusted EPS of $0.90 to $1.10. The company did say that it expected to generate about 44% of revenue in the first half of the year.

Here is what 3D Systems had to say Friday:

[3D Systems] anticipates its first quarter revenue to be in the range of $158 million to $160 million. The company expects to report a GAAP loss in the range of $0.13 per share to $0.15 per share and non-GAAP earnings in the range of $0.02 per share to $0.04 per share. The company expects to report that it ended the quarter with approximately $200 million of available cash.

Unless sales improve by about 50% per quarter for the next three quarters, 3D System’s full-year guidance has no chance of being met. As for earnings per share, the consensus analysts’ estimate of $0.17 in the first quarter has been stomped to death, and the company’s full-year guidance is also out the window.

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How did the price of oil and the strong dollar hurt the company? 3D Systems said:

[T]he decline in the Euro and Yen relative to the U.S. Dollar and the aftershock of lower oil prices, caused the majority of [the company’s] aerospace, automotive and healthcare customers to curb new printer purchases during the quarter and curtail their materials and service purchases. In addition, certain metal and nylon applications and performance issues delayed the company’s ability to sell additional printers during the quarter.

The company’s CEO added:

We were surprised and disappointed by the abrupt interruption in customer demand late in the quarter from several economic factors that we believe caused our industrial customers to defer their planned investments. … Several weeks into the second quarter, bookings are ahead of the same period in the first quarter. Specifically, OEMs that paused to assess their own exposure to foreign currency and macroeconomic impacts are beginning to resume their capital investments and are making the purchases they deferred during the first quarter.

3D Systems said it would update its annual guidance when it reports first-quarter earnings, currently scheduled for May 6.

The company’s rapid acquisition pace of the past several years may have given it breadth and depth in the 3D printing market, but the other side of that coin is that marketplace changes may produce effects that are larger than expected. That could be what happened here.

After about an hour of trading Friday morning, the shares were down 7.1% to $28.00, in a 52-week range of $26.29 to $69.56. The price fell to $26.82 a few moments after the opening bell. The consensus price target on the stock is $36.37.

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